Twylla's story
by inkjane123
Summary: Before the Dawning, all I wanted was to fall in love and live my own life away from my family and all its dark secrets. My name is Twylla and here is my story.
1. Chapter 1

Before the Dawning, all I wanted was to fall in love and live my own life away from my family and all its dark secrets. My name is Twylla and here is my story.

Chapter One: History

Lord and Lady Fonté looked and acted just like any other couple of the court save for the fact that Lady Fonté was the King's youngest sister. Their parents King Frederick and Queen Maggie were beloved by the people however only a small few knew of Queen Maggie's dark secret, she was a siphoner- she could suck all the love and happiness out of anything and leave the poor victim empty. For the first two years of her life, she stole more and more love and happiness from her parents until at the age of nine they were empty, Lord and Lady Pearl were nothing inside like ghosts. They only a few years later leaving Maggie's twenty-year-old brother with the title Lord Pearl and an eleven-year-old Maggie. On her eighteenth birthday, she became engaged to the Dauphin of Ember (the kingdom she lived in) and married him later in that year. No one would have believed it possible but Maggie did fall in love with Frederick.

Only ten months into the marriage a royal baby boy was born, Prince Serpens of Ember. She knew straight away that Serpens, her precious baby boy, was not a siphoner. A year later another baby was born, Princess Taygete or Tiggy as her nickname came to be. Five years later and another three girls were born, Princess Bonnie (Bon), Princess Lilliam (Lily) and Princess Olympia. By this point, Queen Maggie was only twenty-four. None of her five children had shown any signs of siphoning yet, however, she knew fate would curse her children with her 'gift' as her husband called it, who turned out to be immune to her 'gift'. Another couple of years later and Maggie was absolutely certain of two things; one that this was the last baby she was having and two that this child would be a siphoner since none of her other six daughters had inherited it. When Alexandrina, who along with her twin Cassiopeia had just turned three, touched her stomach one day and suddenly started to cry, for a moment she could see all the love and happiness disappear from Drina's eyes. And so Princess Aurelia of Ember was born on a cold winters night.

From that day onwards Aurelia (Ella) never left Maggie's side in case she touched someone and accidentally siphoned them. Ella had a lonely childhood in her small bedroom right next to her parents' instead of in the nursery corridor where all her siblings' were. The only times she saw her ever growing and changing siblings was at family dinners on the last Friday of the month. On Ella's nineteenth birthday she was married off to a man below her station and became Lady Aurelia Fonté of Nova. Ella and Louis, her husband, had four children; Phillip, Blaise and the twins Star and Twylla.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Childhood

I grew up with two older brothers who were always too busy during the day playing sports with my father to even talk to my sister and me. My mother, we only saw for dinner in the evenings and because of her illness, she usually did not get out of on our sixth birthday Star started to visit our mother every day and I was not allowed to come. I never knew what they did there until one day I snuck between the walls and overheard them. I saw my mother standing up near the window and Star with her long platinum blonde hair and silver eyes crouching with her hands on a hedgehog. The words that were whispered in that chamber never left it. Star never told me what she did or why. I decided a few months later to move into my own bedroom, I picked a lovey spacey room on the east wing of the castle with wooden floors, a king poster bed and two large east facing windows so I could watch the sunset in the evenings. My siblings kept to their own schedules and lives until my parents had another baby boy, a little blonde haired cutie called Orion who like my sister and me were named after a star theme. Orion, of course, was beloved by my mother, unlike me. When we were younger our father used to call us his shining Star and his dark Twylla. On the eve of our fourteenth birthday though he took me out into the gardens and stopped in front of a walled area and said: " This small garden needs a lot of work and love that I know you can provide my Night." and he placed a small rusty key in the palm of my hand and left. From then onwards most of my days were either spent labouring in the garden or relaxing with a good book under the magnificent willow tree. One day I saw a pair of emerald green eyes peeking through the keyhole so I opened the door that led out onto the hills to find a lanky red-haired boy with slightly torn clothes staring back at me. I invited him in before anyone could see him and I discovered his name was Cygnus but he preferred to be called Cam and he was the only son of the local baker. Thus my usually lonely days became filled with laughter and happiness with Cam meeting me at my garden gate every day after lunch. In the end, I could slowly but surely feel myself falling in love with him.


	3. Chapter 3

The subject of marriage had been an ever-present matter at the dinner table due to Phillip's recent marriage to Lady Isadora Darnley of Covely, the only daughter of father's longest and best friend. Also, Blaise was in pursuit of Princess Bea of Ashwhitton (a neighbouring kingdom) who was the only daughter of the king. Our uncle, the King of Ember, approved of the match and said he hoped a marriage was in the near future. Father and mother both have their eyes set on my debut into court next week. Star will not be having a debut due to her illness which she and mother are both afflicted with. Star is not allowed to go outside and I am not supposed to talk about her to anyone outside the family. Sometimes I feel sorry for her however when I see the absolute joy in her eyes after spending time with mother I get jealous and envy her instead. To entertain myself during the boring hours alone I would imagine Cam and I getting married and running off to the country and living down by the sea far away from my family and it's dark secrets which almost no one including me knew. I would long for love and delight in the fact that for once I would be somebody's first choice. My debut into court is to take place with Lady Violet, Lady Willa and Lady Sunny who have also just turned eighteen. Today I am planning on seeing Cam but only if I can convince Nurse to leave me at least an hour out of the schedule for 'visiting' my garden. All the staff are running about fretting over my debut even though only a select elite few of them will actually be present. I have the tailors in every other day to make more adjustments to my gown and Nurse lecturing me before and after every meal about what and how I eat will affect my 'beautiful' shape. Star has remained firmly out of it, though it's not like I expected her to get involved, even when my mother miraculously came out of her chambers to scrutinise my gown, Star just retired. My new maid Delia did a new hairstyle on me, which had lovely yellow roses on pins stuck into my hair which stood out against my ebony black hair. Delia also informs me of all the servant's gossip from which I learned that Blaise and Princess Bea are now engaged however no one outside of my parents is to know until the king formally announces it. I am happy for Blaise since he now has a scapegoat to leave the castle.


	4. Chapter 4

p style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #531b93; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: #531b93;"span style="font-kerning: none;"If anyone heard about Cam and me then they would dub us Romeo and Juliet and conclude that we are doomed. I managed to steal an hour in the garden, however, when I turned into the rose courtyard I crumpled to the ground in agony at the sight of Cam and Star passionately kissing. I cried out in pain and Nurse came galloping to my whim, as usual. I witnessed the shock seeping into her eyes when she finally understood the situation, she rushed forwards and grabbed Star by the arm and dragged her inside. We stood there in silence for an extremely long time until he finally made his move. He reached to hold my hand but I snatched it away before he could even touch me. "Twy, " he whispered softly "Twylla, I … I am." "Stop!" I screamed "Don't you even dare lie to me! I trusted you, I allowed you into my garden, I loved you." I gently said into the wind. He turned me back to face him, " I loved you first, I still do but I can't help also falling in love with her." He fumbled on " I can't choose, please don't make me choose between you two." I could imagine the cogs in his head turning over the situation. " No" I replied " If you truly were in love with me you would have never fallen for her in the first place, choose her. Though do be warned my father will be hearing about this from Nurse and once he does you will never be able to see either of us ever again." In the pits of his eyes, I could see the anger bubbling. " Leave now, Cam, before I alert the guards to a trespasser on my property." With tension still hanging in the air he swivelled around angrily and left. As he was sauntering away I could feel my heart finally being shattered after falling for so long, and the walls around it sliding up. For days after that life-changing day I never said a single word to anyone. I heard castle rumours from Delia that the Reds, the humans in the kingdom who had strange magical powers, that their numbers were increasing. /span/p 


	5. Chapter 5

The rumours were flying like plagues and apparently, the Reds are planning to riot outside the Palace in Fire, the capital of Ember. My mother is really worried about her brother, the King's safety whilst my father is more concerned about the King's children, for he believes that they are the future of our family. He has big plans for one of us younger children to marry the heir to the throne. The twins, Prince Frederick and Princess Cassandra, are the heirs to the throne along with their younger sister Princess Dominique, the twins are a year older than Star and I, and Dominique is a year younger than Orion. If Frederick is chosen to be the next ruler than either Star and I will marry him, however, if Dominique is chosen she will marry Orion. The spare who does not marry Frederick will marry Lord Astor, the young orphan Lord who controls the whole of Ember's waterworks, he is extremely rich, only 2 years older than us and has no family left to get in the way. I expect if Frederick is chosen in the Dating then it is likely that I will marry him because of Star's illness, father thinks she is a liability.


End file.
